How to take Extreme Selfies on the ice this Winter

With the festive season in full swing, social media is packed-full of ice-skating selfies. So, making yours stand out from the crowd is no easy feat. Perfect for capturing those Instagrammable moments as you glide (or stumble) across the ice, smartphones make the ideal skating accessory. However, with a mulled wine in one glove-laden grasp and a phone in the other, capturing that winning ‘Freeze Frame’ isn’t as easy as Kim K makes it look…

To ensure your skating selfie tops the list this Christmas, HTC has worked with British Figure Skater Danielle Harrison to curate a list of the best smartphone tips and tricks, guaranteed to rake in the likes. Danielle was also challenged to capture her own extreme selfie using the new HTC U11 Life and it’s squeezable selfie function, whilst performing amazing tricks on the ice.

How to take the perfect Freeze Frame:

Angles

While you might not be a GB skater, you can master the selfie to Olympic standards. Danielle advises, “Just like ice skating itself, it’s all about angles and precision. Try a few shots from each side and a few from straight on, assess what works best and continue with your chosen angle!” Bending your arm into the perfect position can be tricky but luckily HTC’s U11 Family, including the HTC U11, U11 Life and U11+, all boast Edge Sense technology, meaning you can squeeze the sides of the phone to take a photo – it even works through gloves!

Lighting

Danielle says, “There’s nothing more beautiful than when the sun catches a fresh ice rink on a crisp winter’s morning, it’s perfect for taking photos too.” Luckily, ice-rinks are the Selfie Queen’s (or King’s) lighting haven. Nothing says perfect selfie conditions like a white background, flooded by bright lights, with a sprinkling of fairy lights for good measure. Keep the most prominent light source in front of you, e.g. the sun in daylight skating or an artificial light in the evening, for the most flattering shot. Don’t use flash, it’ll overexpose your features.

Distance

While your Christmas bobble hat might look great, the perfect selfie shows your entire facial profile rather than the top of your head, so don’t hold your phone too high. Aim to position your phone at shoulder height before snapping away. Similarly, nobody wants a shot too up close and personal, hold the smartphone at arm’s length for optimum selfie success.

Composition

For a selfie, the main focus of the shot is (you’ve guessed it) – you! Don’t clutter your image with a messy background, so try to avoid getting too many other ice skaters in the shot. Create a sense of location by showing a backdrop of the rink, a Christmas tree, fairy lights or a friend skating behind you, while ensuring your face takes pride of place of course.

Take it steady

We’re not always blessed with the luxury of a well-lit bathroom to take our selfie; on the ice, conditions are ever-changing. “Even after years of skating, I still sometimes take a tumble and lose my balance!”, Danielle adds. You might be speeding around the rink or doing your best Bambi impression. Either way, the HTC U11+ comes with amazing Optical Image Stabilisation to reduce blur, so you get the sharpest pictures possible, even if you’re balancing on one leg.

Try, try and try again

Danielle says, “I love taking photos when training, to show my friends and family what I’m up to and to act as keepsakes for myself, but taking the perfect skating selfie while dashing around the rink is a hard one to master!” Keep snapping, giving yourself a whole show reel to choose from, then pick your favourite at the end. HTC’s HDR Boost technology allows users to take dynamic photographs, without even slowing down, by scanning the scene and capturing multiple frames to balance the lighting for you.

Always be prepared

Ensure your phone is already out when you take to the ice to avoid awkward fumbling and rifling through pockets while trying to keep your balance! That way, when you’ve lined up that perfect selfie all you’ve got to do is squeeze your HTC smartphone to activate Edge Sense and capture that moment forever.

It’s all in the edit

Find your favourite filters and stick with them, it’ll give your social feed a consistent aesthetic alongside enhancing your selfie too. Android has a huge range of photo editing filters and apps available to play around with.

The HTC U11+ boasts a bigger screen so that you can assess your selfies in high-definition, while ensuring the phone fits snugly into your palm as you skate thanks to its narrow frame. The smartphone also has 30% increased battery life, so that you never run out of charge on the ice.

The HTC U11 Life also comes with Edge Sense technology to guarantee that perfect ice-skating selfie this winter, along with a 16MP camera to capture stunningly clear photos. It’s also weather resistant, giving you the best pictures come rain or shine (and snow…).